Another day, another piece of cake for breakfast. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting today. I think I am becoming the cake for breakfast man (either that or Captain Diabetic after all this sugar)

It reminded me of this video:

cake

I am having cake for lunch. This probably could qualify as a status update or twitter post, but I don't use twitter and like announcing it via my blog.

Inappropriate names, Pakistan and fun with google translate.

Apparently a quite able Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as a candidate for ambassador to Saudi Arabia because his name translates as "biggest dick".

According to the Foreign Policy Blog post:

"A high level Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as Ambassador of Saudi Arabia because his name, Akbar Zib, equates to "Biggest Dick" in Arabic. Saudi officials, apparently overwhelmed by the idea of the name, put their foot down and gave the idea of his being posted there, the kibosh."

link: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/03/ambassador_at_very_large

I really can't make this stuff up!

So I followed the link to the original article at Arab Times and then translated the Arabic page using Google translate. Funny hijinks ensue: link to translation

"...reject the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council to accept the credentials (the biggest cock) a new Pakistani ambassador ..."

"The Pakistani government has decided to appoint (the biggest cock) ambassador in the UAE, but its request was turned down..."

and finally:

"...His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of Pakistan's new ambassador to the State's largest cock ... Who presented his credentials to His Highness Sheikh Khalifa ... And His Excellency (the biggest dick) was pleased to meet His Highness Sheikh who carried (the biggest cock) presents his compliments to the people of Pakistan"

Check out the link above to read the entire translated story.

Moving to another part of the world, Southern India, where the name Mahalingham is quite popular. Just Google it, lots of names come up. Why do I bring this up? Because if you break down Mahalingham into it's parts, you get:

Maha - meaning great

Lingha - Phallus

Great Phallus. Mothers have to be pretty sure of their son's (or daughters) future confidence to name them great phallus.

On that note, In the immortal words of the great Johnny Cash: "And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him . . . Bill or George, any damn thing but Akbar Zib or Mahalingham"

Dutch Ovens and Mormons

So I was doing some research a while back, not sure what I was researching, but I stumbled across this little factoid:
The official cooking pot of Utah is the dutch oven.
Utah Cooking Pot

Yup you read that right, back in 1996, while the rest of America was enjoying economic boom and Bill Clinton was boffing interns and deciding cloning is a bad thing, Utah decided at 7:18 AM on 12/5/1996 to approve the dutch oven as the official state cooking pot. Here's the actual bill:
Utah Bill

I love the last part:
"A limited legal review of this bill raises no obvious constitutional or statutory concerns."

They must of forgotten about the hidden 28th amendment banning foreign named cooking instruments from official status! The 28th amendment was later changed to include "fart related objects" from holding official status. What does "limited legal review" mean? They searched the constitution for dutch oven and didn't find it? Can you imagine a legal clerk having that land on his desk?
"Please investigate constitutional or statutory concerns issues related to naming out state cooking pot as the dutch oven"

3 years of law school to look into what's essentially a giant Utah fart joke?

A short (true) story

When it snows, people seem to be magnetically drawn to grocery stores.



The girl with the blue hair was there again, restocking the sliced cheeses. She's stick thin, and her hair is a washed out sort of blue, like hair that has been dyed while ago. As she bends over to stack the sliced cheeses into their neat rows, I notice that we're wearing the same boxers; red with dogs on them, a holiday special from a few years back at the Gap. Trader Joe's always has the most interesting employees. There is inevitably the bearded guy somewhere, the girl with the really short hair and the obnoxious guy who insists you have to try "the new vegan chocolate crackers." I tried them once, they tasted terrible.

I always refuse to get a cart at Trader Joe's, it seems like overkill. I never buy more than a few items, but carts always seem like driving a Mini-van by yourself. As I walked down the 4 aisles before hitting the produce section, I randomly filled my basket with items, a pint of Italian Grapefruit soda, some sliced cheese ("Excuse me" to the girl with the blue hair), a bag of those bake at home rolls. Finally shuffling into the bleak desert of an end of January grocery store produce section in New England.

Plastic wrapped cucumbers, sickly looking oranges, and bananas doing their best Dalmatian impression. I grab one of each and on to the last stop, the dairy section. There is a guy there, steel toed boots worn down to the steel, pants with holes and paint in equal abundance, and 2 hoodies covered by a blue Dickies work jacket. He has paint in his hair and as I get closer, I can see that the left arm on his glasses, long broken, is soldered into place. He grabs a gallon of milk, checks the price and then puts it back and takes the half gallon. His basket only has a dozen eggs and now the half gallon of milk. I glance down at mine, full of salami, overpriced produce, and the sliced cheese the girl with the blue hair stacked so neatly.

We both head towards the register and as we get there, a new line opens up, I politely let him go before me and place my basket on the little ledge as the cashier (short haired girl) rings him up.
"$4.19"
He pulls out his battered wallet and slides his credit card through the reader. The register beeps at the cashier and the asks him to try it again. Again, beep.
"Is it a gift card? It says here that there isn't sufficient balance."
It's not a gift card.

He fumbles with his wallet pulling out all his cards, but knowing that there wasn't any forgotten money in there. He mumbles that he doesn't have another way to pay and, with his head down walks away from the cash register and grabs his folding grocery
cart. On his way out the door, I see that his folding grocery cart is filled with bags from Shaws, another grocery store about a half mile away.
He had walked a half a mile extra in worn out boots to save a dollar on milk and eggs.
"$33.75"
I pull the two twenties out of my wallet and haphazardly stuff the change into my pocket.

I walk slowly to my car, put my groceries in the back, and sit and stare at the snow accumulating on windshield.